Internet Famous by Danika Stone (Blog Tour Interview & #Giveaway)

I'm welcoming Danika Stone to my blog today for a very fun interview, so definitely check that out as well as the other info and giveaway below...

Internet Famous

by Danika Stone

YA Contemporary

Paperback & ebook, 320 Pages

June 6th 2017 by Swoon Reads

Summary

Can an online romance survive in real life?

Internet sensation Madison Nakama has it all! Her pop-culture rewatch site has a massive following, and fans across the world wait on her every post and tweet. Even Madi’s dismal romantic life seems ready to take off as Laurent, a fellow geek (and unfairly HOT French exchange student!) starts flirting with her in the comments section of her blog. But Laurent’s not the only one watching for Madi’s replies.

Internet fame has a price, and their online romance sparks the unwanted attention of a troll. When Madi’s “real life” hits a rough patch, she feels her whole world crumbling. With Laurent’s support, can Madi rally her friends across the globe to beat the troll, or will he succeed in driving her away from everything―and everyone―she loves?

(Affiliate links included - I receive a small kickback if you make a purchase using my links.)

With this book, the title came first. While editing All the Feels, my editor Holly caught on a snippet of dialogue where Xander asks Liv if she’s “internet famous” and Holly said to me: “THAT is the name of your next book.”

Jump forward a few months and I was fleshing out the idea of what it meant to be a celebrity online. I thought a lot about an incident with Mark Oshiro from Mark Does Stuff fame. Years before, he’d done a rewatch of Battlestar Galactica. At the time, I was still part of the BSG fandom and I recall a very nasty argument breaking out in one of the discussion forums about his view of the series’ ending.

I was shocked by the level of vitriol aimed at Mark, someone I knew (albeit online), and it’s one of the few times I actually got into an argument with a long-time fandom acquaintance. The whole incident left me feeling unsettled. In my view, fandom is supposed to be a good place. One person had changed that for me. That experience got me thinking about the ups and down of internet fame. From that spark, Internet Famous was born.

Would you tell us a little more about the main characters of the story?

Madi is a blogger who has been burned more than once because of online trolls. She is everything I think a fangirl should be: fierce, excited, enthusiastic about her fandoms. For her, online experience is an escape since, like many people, she has a less-than-perfect real life. Her main challenge is the abandonment of her mother and the difficulty that causes the family.

One reason for this is her sister, Sarah, who is on the autism spectrum. Changes to her schedule - especially something as large as her mother’s unexpected departure for England - make coping difficult. Despite this, Sarah and Madi are incredibly close. Sarah loves her sister and genuinely trusts her. One aspect of growing up is Madi and Sarah both learning to be independent of one another.

Into this mix comes Laurent! On the surface he’s a super-cute French exchange student, but underneath he’s a massive nerd, searching for his place in the online world. When he and Madi meet, sparks fly!

What is your favorite part of the story?

While I loved writing everything, my favorite relationship of Internet Famous is the sibling dynamic between Madi and Sarah. They are very close, and have the same ups and downs as any sisters do, though some of these challenges are exacerbated by Sarah’s unique needs, and Madi’s online drama. Through it all, they stick by one another’s sides. Madi is the one person who really ‘gets’ Sarah, and in many ways, Sarah’s the only one who truly ‘gets’ Madi. Both of them grow up over the course of the story and I really loved writing that!

Have you ever met a friend or boyfriend exclusively online or would you want to?

Many of my best friends are people I’ve met online through fandom throughout the years. I’ve met many of them face-to-face – through conventions, primarily – and it’s always been wonderful! I suspect that the ‘stranger danger’ my parents always warned me about as a teen is still there… but as long as you’re smart and stick with public places for meetings, it’s pretty minimal.

I have more supportive friends for writing from online friendships than I ever had in real life. (I live in a relatively small town.) When I need beta-readers, I go to people online. When I celebrate, I share it with my online peeps! For me, the internet is one of the best ways for a “secret introvert” like me to make friends!

What’s the best, funniest or craziest thing you’ve seen on social media?

I happened to see The Mummy trailer missing half its audio before it was pulled down. (You can’t find it now.) I think I watched that think like 50 times, tears streaming down my face because I was laughing so hard.

Poor Tom Cruise. I’ll never be able to hear him grunt again without breaking into giggles.As you write in both the young adult and adult genres, what do you like about writing young adult books that’s different from adult books?

I find a lot more freedom in writing YA. It’s such a vibrant genre! I want my characters to be real people, to embrace diversity, and that is celebrated in YA. While there’s certainly an audience for the same sorts of diverse writing in contemporary fiction, the audience tends to be older, and so it’s embraced to a lesser degree. I know that with my mysteries, I was asked to “tone back” certain characters to make them more palatable for a broad audience. I’ve never been asked that with my YA books.

How would you describe INTERNET FAMOUS in a tweet (140 characters or less)?

I can’t give too many details about it yet, but I’m working on a very fun, action-packed YA for Swoon and I also wrote the sequel to Edge of Wild, called The Dark Divide. It is coming out from Stonehouse sometime in the next year or so. Very exciting stuff!

About the Author

Danika Stone is an author, artist, and educator who discovered a passion for writing fiction while in the throes of her Masters thesis. A self-declared bibliophile, Danika now writes novels for both adults (The Intaglio Series and Ctrl Z) and teens (Icarus and All the Feels). When not writing, Danika can be found hiking in the Rockies, planning grand adventures, and spending far too much time online. She lives with her husband, three sons, and a houseful of imaginary characters in a windy corner of Alberta, Canada.

The first book in Danika’s upcoming Tathagata series (Edge of Wild) was selected as a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel of the Year Award (2013). Edge of Wild (Stonehouse CA) will be released March 2016. Danika’s YA novel, All the Feels (Macmillan US), will be released June 2016.

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About Tressa

Welcome to Wishful Endings! This is where I geek out about all things bookish (mostly YA, but also Romance, Christian Romance, LDS Romance, and occasionally other genres and hobby titles)! I always include content info in my reviews so you know what you're diving into. I enjoy helping publishers and authors promote their books as a tour host for Prism Book Tours. Outside of blogging, I'm a total Marvel geek, Austen lover, and enjoy hanging with the family (husband, four kiddos, and pup).

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